


This Thing Between Us

by xantissa



Series: Carnival of Rust [31]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4439150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scarlett learns of the future while Khan learns from the past</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Thing Between Us

She looked around the room Khan led her to. It was fairly big for what she assumed a spaceship had to offer. As thrilling as the perspective of discovering a whole new avenue of science was, she was aware a space ship had the same limitations as an ordinary ship would: space and supplies.

She watched Khan openly as he moved in the room.

He’d lost a lot of weight since the last time she’d seen him and it took her aback. She’d never seen him this…vulnerable. Between the weight loss and the short hair, she was sure that Khan was in less than optimal health.

It was disquieting.

She watched him bend down over the bed, fiddle with the bedding and straighten up with something in his arms that she was at first convinced was just a pillow. However the way he carried it suggested a living thing.

Her suspicions were confirmed as he came closer and made a move to give her the creature.

She took it, not because she wanted to, but because it was Khan that was offering. 

Just as she’d always done things for him she wouldn’t normally do.

The creature was small, weighing no more than an average housecat. It was covered in very fine fur, round in shape, and didn’t seem to have any visible appendages. It was warm though, and vibrating intensely from the heavy purring coming forth with astounding volume for a creature so small. 

The purring was…pleasant.

“What is this?” she asked, curious as to the way it was built and its very obviously extraterrestrial origin.

“A tribble. It’s become a kind of tradition to have a newly awakened member of our crew hold it.” There was a cautious smile on his face. He seemed less sure, or maybe just less grounded than the man she knew.

At first she wanted to give the creature back to him, but it’s constant, low purring was…affecting her. It was actually very nice. And while she wasn’t a fan of all the physical contact Khan liked to indulge in with his crew, finding the mingled scent of him as well as several others of his people on the tribble had a calming sensation. Before she’d made a conscious decision, she was already hugging the thing.

“What is it called?”

He made the oddest of faces.

“Thing.”

She looked at his sheepish face and then back to Thing in her arms.

“A conflict of opinions I presume?”

He snorted.

“I might have been threatened with mutiny at two separate occasions so far. I shudder to think what will happen when others arrive.” His cheer was a bit forced, she could tell. The bond he was the focus of included her as well, but unlike other Augment’s, she wasn’t as affected by it. Mostly she used it to locate whomever she needed to find quickly or judge Khan’s emotional state. 

He used to control his feeling much better before the cryosleep.

He reached to pet the fluffy creature and his big hand slid through the soft fur low enough to touch her own hands. She stared at the surreptitious movement and wondered since when did Khan need an excuse to touch her? She couldn’t discern the reason for the physical contact.

It took her a moment to remember to actually return it. Showing emotions through physical contact or words was always, always something she had to do consciously. It escaped her, the meaning of such actions. It was almost counterintuitive for her, but it seemed that without it, her emotions were held in…less esteem than otherwise.

She told him she loved him. It wasn’t as if she set him up for review every month or something as formal, so her constantly having to reassure him was tedious at best. Scarlett understood however, that not many people functioned the way she did, so she made sure not to telegraph any of her thoughts as she shifted to catch Khan’s hand in her own, letting their fingers slide together. She felt the smooth skin that never held evidence of injury and the tendons underneath, for a moment distracted my the marvel that human hands were, mostly because there were no muscles inside the fingers. The muscles which bent the finger joints were located in the palm and up in the mid forearm, and were connected to the finger bones by tendons, which pulled on and moved the fingers like the strings of a marionette. At the same time, fingers were incredibly strong for their size.

When she looked at Khan again, he was gazing at her with familiar fondness, obviously having caught her being sidetracked. 

“Where are they?” she asked, meaning the crew.

“Scattered. Only seventy three of us are left, Scarlett. Maybe less, because with you we found an empty pod.”

There was a question in his eyes, one he wasn’t yet asking. She had only moments to decide what her course of action would be. From what she remembered of the base and the torture barely disguised as experiments, condoned there, this estimate was more optimistic she could have hoped for.

During her awakening in the Medbay and her walk here, Scarlett had already managed to notice the way the red-haired woman looked like a washed-out, pale ghost of herself. Since she was an Augment, whatever didn’t kill her, didn’t hurt her later, which pointed to mental trauma. Combined with the severely reduced number of their people, Turin’s protective stance and Khan’s…oddness, she deduced the human in charge of the experiments managed to traumatise most of those who were awake and survived the experience.

She lied.

After all, Khan had never once caught her out in a lie yet, and there was no reason to suspect he would become sharper now.

“What happened?” 

“You don’t know?” She couldn’t say if he suspected the lie or was just making sure. 

She shook her head, not speaking. Khan was always unfairly adept at using his own voice to affect others as well as reading the sound of others.

Scarlett watched him as he gave her an abridged version of Admiral Marcus’s actions and what happened to him later. Only some part of her attention was focused on his words, the rest was analysing the way he spoke, his facial expressions and tone of voice. The things he didn’t say were as telling as those he did.

He was obviously in a sexual relationship with the human captain. He had a certain and unmistakable way of modulating his voice when speaking about people he’d had sex with. That wouldn’t be the case much longer, she thought, as Turin was already awake. The blond was much too protective of Anjali and of how Khan worked with that woman,to ever let any kind of threat to that relationship stand.

He was undecided about something, the internal conflict easy to see now that she looked and listened to him.

He was hesitating.

Scarlett felt some things becoming suddenly clear.

“The children are dead.” She threw the statement in the air, waiting to see his reaction. 

She didn’t expect it to be quite this dramatic though. Not only did he flinch as if struck, he paled considerably. For a single moment, Khan looked at her with fear in his eyes. She could not say if he was afraid of her or of the things she said.

“I’d actually forgot about” he murmured quietly “the way you see things.”

“You hid this.” She was confused again, not understanding why he felt the need to hide it from her.

He closed his eyes, coming closer.

“I killed them Scarlett,” he confessed, his voice wrecked.

“They were already dead,” she said sharply, not liking the way he looked then. Like a stranger. Like something weak and ugly.

“I gave the command for the pods to self destruct!” he shouted at her, angry suddenly. The way he switched emotions was too fast, even for him. He wasn’t acting right.

“I repeat. They were already dead. All you could do was choose an easier death for them. I would have done the same for you.”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard enough to make her bite her own lip. The injury healed instantly, but she could still taste the blood in her mouth.

“I killed my own children! I deserve to be punished!” He looked shocked, both at his own words and his actions. That kind of loss of control was extremely out of character for Khan; it made her feel uncomfortable, confused and angry.

“Does it help? Does it serve a purpose?” she asked finally, honestly curious.

“What?” Her question seemed to jerk him out of the fugue he’d slipped into earlier.

“Does your self-flagellating and suffering bring them back to life? Does it serve any kind of purpose?” She never broke their gaze. 

Her words didn’t reach him though. He looked as angry and confused as she felt now.

“You can have more children...” she offered tentatively, not really grasping what he actually wanted from her. Condemnation? Wasn’t going to happen. Comfort? That wasn’t something she was good at, she knew it.

With an odd sound, a sigh and a sob mixed together into one unrecognizable utterance he reached for her shoulders again, hugging her tightly.

“It doesn’t help,” he admitted finally, still holding her.

“I’m...sorry?” She offered the platitude tentatively, hoping this time she would be right in her choice of words.

He snorted a soft laugh into her hair, a sad kind of sound. Something was broken in Khan, and she had no idea how to fix it.

It had been a good decision, not to tell him she was awake during section 31 experiments.

“I never asked,” he said suddenly, his voice weak. “Do you hate me for breaking off our relationship?”

Scarlett looked at him surprised again. It was no wonder she’d had no patience for dealing with humans and their tiny intellects when it required all her patience to deal with the idiocy the Augments themselves were capable of.

“Yes,” she said clearly, hoping that small words would be better understood.

He flinched, visibly flinched from her. 

He turned his face away and stared at the side of the room for long moments, obviously trying to control his emotions. He always had so many of them, so chaotic and uncontrolled. She had no idea how he ever managed to live with them.

“Why stay with me then?” he asked slowly, obviously drained from their talk. She couldn’t say she felt better. Maybe not as shattered as him, but confused and at the end of her patience. “It’s not as if you believe in our mission.”

She exhaled, very slowly, once again trying to choose simple words.

“Why would I care about that idiotic plan of yours? It doesn’t give me anything. It’s not like anyone can be my intellectual equal, the other Augments are just less idiotic than the humans tend to be.” She watched his face very carefully, aware of the steady beat in his neck. He didn’t understand her at all. 

“I never said I stopped loving you,” she reminded, irritated that he’d already forgotten.

He closed his eyes, exhaling long and slow before carding his hand through his short hair. She liked the way it made the muscles in his chest rise up for a moment and the rather pretty contrast of his biceps under the black shirt.

“Forgive me. I seem to be at less than my best today,” he said, smiling a little.

Scarlett went to the bed and picked up Thing again. It started purring immediately.

“I’m aware.”

He looked at her with suddenly clear, grey eyes.

“You are. You really are,” he murmured softly, obviously to himself so she didn't bother responding.

“I want to sleep here today,” she declared, not giving him a chance to come up with another option.

“Of course. Shall I bring you something to eat?”

She nodded, already busy with figuring out how to work the small device he had left on his side table. It looked a lot like tablets used to look.


End file.
